t.io?^ 



/ 








/ 





\ 



ADDRESSES 


§foIbkrs' anb §aUm:s' 


i^tatc te^tntral ^omntittce 


TO TIIK 


Soioes tHD hm or PwYivtNii 


IN FAVOR OF GRANT AND COLFAX. 


i HEADQUARTERS 


Soldiers' and Sailors' State Central Committee, 


PHILADELPHIA, 


; 206 South Sevkxtii Street. 


1 CHARGES H. T. COLLIS (Hit. Maj. Oen. Vols.). rlu,lrman. 


A. I. nUSSHLZ (Late .Adjt .;.-n nf Pp„n.vir,ni,,, s.rvHar,,. 


PHILADKLPTIIA: 


S H E R M A N & C O., P R I N T K R S. 


1868. 



ADDRESSES 

OF THE 

^olbicrs' anb jailors' 
^inte |cntral ^ommitttt 

TO THE 

SoiDi[Rs tND SiiioRs OF hmmm, 

IN FAVOR OF GRANT AND COLFAX. 



ITEADQUARTERS 

Soldiers' and Sailors' State Central Committee, 

philadelphia, 
206 South 8eventu Street. 

CBAJtI.ES a. T. COZZIS (Bvt. Maj. Gen. Vols.), auiirman. 
A. Z. ItUSSJSZZ (Late Adjt Oen. of PennsyWania), Secretary. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

HERMAN & CO., PRINTERS. 

1868. 



6l( 






'OLDIKRS AND ^AILORS OF J'^ENNSYLYANIA. 



SoUlirrs' aud Sailors' State Central Committee, 

TuiLADKLPBiA, August 20, 18G8. 

The committee have tliought it proper to lay before their con- 
stituents a brief but full statement of the reasons which should 
induce all loyal American citizens, af the coming Presidential 
election, to vote for Grant and Colfax ; and, in doing so, they 
will proceed at once to a discussion of the grave questions to be 
settled by the decision of the American people, in November next, 
or by a new rebellion, to be headed by the Democratic nominee' 
with the advice and assistance of-his co-nominee, General Blair. 

These reasons will be published from day to day by tlie com- 
mittee, in a series of addresses. % %,■ ■ 



ADDRESS No. I 

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAR? 

Mr. Rhett, of South Carolina, a leading rebel, said, after the 
ordinance of secession was passed by the convention of that State: 
" 2%; secession of South Carolina is not an event of a day. It is 
not any t/iijig produced by Mr. Lincoln s election, or by the non- 
execution of the fugitive slave law. It has been a matter which 
has been gathering head for thirty years." 

General Andrew Jackson, our patriotic President, in 1833, said 
of the Nullifiers and Secessionists of his day : " The tariff was 
only the pretext, and disunion awif A SOUTHERN CONFliDER- 
ACY THE REAL OBJECT.' The next pretext will be the negro 
or slavery question." 

A prophecy fulfilled by Mr. Calhoun and his pupils and fol- 
lowers to the very letter. 

By the resolve of the Cincinnati Convention, in 1856, the 
Democratic National Convention of 1860 assembled at Charleston 
on the 23d of April,*^nd after a stormy session, and the secession 
of eleven Slave States, adjourned to meet at Baltimore on the 18th 



i 

of June. The seceders ailjonrned to meet at Richmond on the 11th 
of June. From the convention at Baltimore other secessions took 
place, and Stephen A. Douglas was nominated by the adhering 
members, and John C. Breckinridge by the seceders, as their re- 
spective candidates for President of the United States, in which 
last nomination the Richmond seceders acquiesced. 

Mr. Bell was nominated by a body styled the Union Constitu- 
tional Convention, wliich met at Baltimore on the 9th of May ; 
and Mr. Lincoln was nominated by the Republican National Con- 
vention, which met at Chicago on the I6th of May, 1860. 

There were, therefore, four Presidential Candidates in the 
field, two of them belonging to the Democratic party, the pro- 
slavery wing of which would never coalesce with the supporters of 
Judge Douglas. 

To the Democrats of the Slave States it therefore became clear 
that Mr. Lincoln must be elected in November, and Mr. Keitt, 
speaking for South Carolina, said : " In my judgment, if the 
Black Republican party succeeds in the coming election, the 
Governor should immediately assemble the Legislature, and that 
body should provide for a State convention, which should protect 
the State from the dishonor of submission to Black Republican 
rule." 

The same sentiment was openly avowed by the leading Demo- 
. crats in every Slave State, and the Democratic party was sedu- 
lously prepared for secession, and a forcible dissolution of the 
Union. 

On Tuesday, the 6th of November the returns showed that Mr. 
Lincoln was the ne.xt President of the United States, Governor Gist 
having expressed in his message to the Legislature of South Caro- 
lina on that day, the opinion that in that event the only alternative 
left is the "secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union." 

On the 7th (the next day) the United States officials resigned 
at Charleston, and on the 10th the U. S. Senators, Hammond 
and Chesnut, resigned their seats in the Senate. On the 17th 
December the ordinance of secession was unanimously adopted, 
and on the 21st commissioners were appointed to proceed to 
Washington to treat for the possession of United States Govern- 
ment property within the limits of South Carolina. On the 24th 
their representatives in Congress withdrew, and on the 3d of Jan- 
uary, 1861, the South Carolina commissioners left Washington. 
On the 1st February seven States had passed ordinances of seces- 
sion, and withdrawn from the Union. 

On the 4th February the Confederate Congress met at Mont- 
gomery, and its president, Howell Cobb, announced that secession 
"is now a fixed and irrevocable fact, and the separation is perfect, 
complete, and perpetual." On the 8th the constitution of the pro- 
visional government was adopted, and on the 18th Jefferson Davis 
was inaugurated as President. 

On the 11th March, 1861, the permane7it slave constitution of 



the Confederate States was signed, and Jefferson Davi.< and Alex- 
ander H. Stephens became the rebel President and ^'ic■c-Prcsident 
of a Southern Confederacy whose corner-stone was negro slaver}'. 

During this whole period, up to the 4th of March, 18(51, Mr. 
Eucluinan, a Democrat, was President, with a Cabinet of whom, 
originally, only two were Union men. 

The Democratic Secretary of the Treasury having injured, to 
the utmost of his power, the finances and credit of the nation, 
stole away on the 10th December and became President of the 
provisional rebel Congress. On the 29th the Democratic Secre- 
tary of War, who, at tlie instance of Jefferson Davis, filled the 
Southern arsenals with United States arms for rebel use, resigned, 
and was followed on the 8th January, 18G1, by the Democratic 
Secretary of the Interior, whose department had been robbed by 
a subordinate, while the Democratic Secretary of the Navy, who 
must have known the intentions of his colleagues, had distributed 
our naval force on distant stations, from which it would take 
months to bring them liome. 

The Democratic Attorney-General advised the President that 
he had no power to coerce a State, in which opinion the Demo- 
cratic Executive coincided, and of course took no measures to 
prevent the robbery of arsenals and mints, the seizure of public 
vessels, the capture of forts, and the firing on ships of the United 
States conveying provisions to United States troops in United 
States forts. 

The President was an aged man, traitorously deserted by those 
men whom he had rewarded by the highest offices in his gift, and 
without a single honest adviser of his original Cabinet, General 
Cass having resigned as Secretary of State. 

Southern emissaries swarmed at Washington, postponing, by 
every device, all measures of the Government tending to counter- 
act the active and constant preparations for war by the rebel Slave 
States. Mr. Keitt, in November, 18G0, said : " John Hickman 
said defiantly, that if we went out of the Union eighteen millions 
of Union men would bring us back. Let me tell you there are a 
million of Democrats in the North, who, when the'Black Republi- 
cans attempt to march upon the South, will be found a wall of fire 
to the front." [Cries of "That's so," and applause.] And Mr. 
Durgan said: "It is not true in point of fact, that all the North- 
ern people are hostile to the rights of the South. We have a 
Spartan band in every Northern State;" and when we find an ex- 
President in a private confidential letter to the man who the next 
year was the rebel President, using the following language, it is 
not to be wondered at, that the Southern rebels relied on the ac- 
tive and efficient aid of Northern Democrats. 

"I do not believe," writes ex-President Pierce from New York 
to Jefferson Davis at Washington, "that our friends in the South 
have any just idea of the state of feeling, hurrying at this mo- 
ment to the pitch of intense exasperation,' between those who re- 
2 



spect their political obligations and those who have apparently no 
impelling power but that which fanatical passion on the subject 
of domestic slavery imparts. Without discussing the question of 
right, of abstract power to secede, I have never believed that ac- 
tual disruption of the Union can occur without bloodshed ; and 
if, through the madness of Northern abolitionism, that dire 
calamity must come, it will not be along Mason and Dixon's line 
merely — it will be within our own borders, in our own streets, be- 
tween the tivo classes of citizens to zvhom I have referred.'" 
^ On the 8th of January, 1861, the Mayor of the City of New 
York, a sound Democrat, said : " It would seem that a dissolution 
of the Union is inevitable." He then propounds the question 
whether the city of New York, throwing off its allegiance to the 
General Government, may not become a free city. "If the Con- 
federacy is broken up the Government is dissolved, and it be- 
hooves every distinct community, as well as every individual, to 
take care of themselves." But as these doctrines savored 
strongly of treason, the prudent municipal executive added: 
"But I am not prepared to recommend the violence implied in 
these views." 

On the 31st of January, 18G1, a great Democratic convention 
was held at Albany, composed of the most influential men of the 
party. On that day and on the ne.xt day seven Slave States had 
seceded, and four days afterwards the Confederate Congress met, 
and announced their separation from the Union to be " perfect, 
complete, and perpetual," and fourteen days afterwards Jefferson 
Davis was inaugurated as President, under the constitution of the 
provisional government, adopted on the 8th. 

The President and both houses of Congress were Democratic, 
and so was the Supreme Court. The seceders, who had actually 
levied war, were Democrats, but traitors; while the meeting at 
Albany was composed of Democrats who in November had voted 
the Democratic ticket. 

One of the speakers presented and approved the view of the 
election of Mr. Lincoln taken by the South Carolina rebels. 
"The Democratic and Union pa'rty at the North," said he, 
"made the issue at the last election, with the Republican party, 
that in the event of their success, and the establishment of their 
policy, the Southern States not only ivould go out of the Union, 
BUT WOULD HAVE ADEQUATE CAUSE FOR DOING 
SO." [Applause.] An acknowledgment which a true patriot and 
not a mere partisan would have been ashamed to have made. To 
think that a great party which had governed the country for 
eight years should consider its defeat, in the election of a Presi- 
dent, a sufficient cause for the secession of all the Slave States 
and a permanent dissolution of the L^nion ! The temper of this 
meeting may be safely estimated by this single miserable partisati 
avowal. 

Governor Seymour said, " Revolution has already begun. We 



are advised by the conservative States of Virginia and Kentucky 
that if force is to be used it must be exerted against the unitech 
South." '-Let us also see if successful coercion by the North is 
LESS REVOLUTiONAiiY than succcssful Secession by the South." 
After praising the valor and sagacity of the men of the South, he 
urged the necessity of compromise in language which he repeated 
even in the last month of the expiring rebellion. 

" The question is simply this — shall we have compromise after 
war or compromise without war." Rejecting all idea of coercing 
the Southern traitors and assuming that their treason must be 
successful. 

The milk and water resolutions of this and of similar Demo- 
cratic meetings in other States, served only to inspirit the Southern 
rebels, one of whom said to a member' of Congress from New 
York: "If your President should attempt coercion, he will have 
more opposition at the North than he can overcome." 

No Democrat, certainly not Governor Seymour, ever urged 
President Buchanan to maintain the Constitution by force, if ne- 
cessary, and in tlie words of the hero of New Orleans, "solemnly 
proclaim thut tin- r'oiistitutioii and the laws are supreme and the 
union INDISSolJ III, !■:.•• 

At Pliilailil|>lii:i. till' 22d February, 18G1, on the solemn raising 
of the United States flag over Independence Hall, Mr. Lincoln, 
in reply to an address of welcome by the President of Select 
Council, used this remarkable language, in relation to the cardinal 
principle of our great Declaration : " We hold these truths to be 
self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed 
by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these 
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." "This is a sen- 
timent," said he, "embodied in the Declaration of Independence. 
Now, my friends, can the country be saveil on this basis ? If it 
can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world 
if I can help to save it. If it cannot be saved on that basis, it 
will be truly awful. But if the country cannot be saved without 
giving up that principle, I was about to say, / ivould rather 
be assassinated on this spot than surrender it." 

The night before he had communicated to him a fully authenti- 
cated account of a conspiracy to assassinate him on the 23d, in 
Baltimore, on his passage from one railroad depot to the other. A 
private messenger from General Scott and Mr. Seward corroborated 
it. Mr. Lincoln was urged to anticipate the day, so as to avoid 
the danger, but he refused to break his morning engagement in 
Philadelphia, or his afternoon engagement at Ilarrisburg, and kept 
both, returned quietly to the city the same evening, took the Wash- 
ington train, and was in the Capital the morning of the day of 
his intended assassination. 

The full account of this atrocious and bloodthirsty conspiracy, 
disgraceful alike to the traitors in Washington and Baltimore, and 
their Southern coadjutors, is to be found in the June number of 



this year, of Harper's 31onthhj, and should be read by every 
American citizen, that he may form a proper idea of the unparal- 
leled wickedness of the authors of the rebellion. But this deter- 
mination to slay was never relinquished, and the lamented Lincoln 
met his fate when he had crushed the rebellion, and the ingrate 
Davis was a fugitive from justice. 

The London Times sent its correspondent, Mr. Russell, in March, 
1861, to the United States, and in 1863 he published, what he 
styled, "My Diary North and South," being, for the most part, 
" extracts from the diaries and note books whigh he assiduously 
kept while he was in the L'nited States, as records of the events 
and impressions of the hour." 

Referring to a dinner party in New York a few days after his 
arrival, he says: "The Hon. Horatio Seymour, a former Gov- 
ernor of the State, was one of the guests;" and adds, "I do not 
think that any of the guests sought to turn the channel of talk 
upon politics, but the occasion offered itself to Mr. Horatio Sey- 
mour to give me his views of the Constitution of the United 
States, and by degrees the theme spread over the table. There 
was not a man who maintained the Government had any power 
to coerce the people of a State, or to force a State to re- 
main in the Union, or under the action of the Federal Govern- 
ment ; in other words, the symbol of power at Washington is not 
at all analogous, to that which represents an established govern- 
ment in other countries. Although they admitted the Southern 
leaders had meditated the treason against the L^nion years ago, 
tJiey could not bring themselves to allow their old opponents, the 
Republicans now in potoer, TO DISPOSE OF THE ARMED 
FORCE OF THE UNION against their BROTHER DEMO- 
CRATS IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 

" ^Ir. Seymour is a man of compromise, but his views go far- 
ther than those which were entertained by his party ten years 
ago : although secession would produce revolution, it was never- 
theless ' a right,' founded on abstract principles, which could 
scarcely be abrogated consistently with due regard to the original 
compact. 

"The Democrats behold with silent satisfaction the troubles 
into which the Republican triumph has plunged the country, and 
are not at all disposed to extricate them. The most notable way 
of impeding their efforts is to knock them down with the ' Con- 
stitution' every time they rise to the surface and begin to swim 
out." 

Treason was rife among the ofEcers of the army and navy, who 
had been educated and supported by the United States, given 
high rank and large pay in both arms of the service ; and one 
General in Texas disgracefully betrayed his trust, and turned 
over his army, with all the posts and fortifications, arms, muni- 
tions, horses, and equipments, to the rebel authorities : by which 
most base and treacherous acts the Union lost half its military 



force,with the State of Texas and the control of the Mexican 
frontier. 

In all this tumult of treason, the rank and file of both ser- 
vices — the soldiers and sailors — stood firm, resisting all the per- 
suasions of their treacherous commanders to desert the time-hon- 
ored flag of the Union, under which they had fought and bled, 
and were ready to meet the traitors whether on the land or'the 
ocean. 

Having failed to get Fort Sumter by negotiation, and Alabama 
being partly repentant, in a discussion at Montgomery, Mr. Gil- 
christ said to the rebel Secretary of War, in the presence of Jef- 
ferson Davis : " Sir, unless you sprinkle blood in the face of the 
people of Alabama, they will be back in the old Union in less 
than ten days." The next day Beauregard opened his batteries 
on Sumter, and Alabama was saved to the rebel Confederacy. 

Major Anderson had moved his whole force of 80 men from 
Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, and after sustaining a bombard- 
ment of 34 hours capitulated and surrendered the fort on Sunday, 
April 14, 1861. 

In the South the news was received with rapturous joy, and the 
Rebel Secretary of War predicted tliat the rebel secession flag 
would, before the first of May, float on the dome of the Capitol at 
Washington, and eventually over Faneuil Hall in Boston. 

At the North the cfl'ect of this attack and surrender was elec- 
tric. No sooner had the telegraph communicated the news to the 
excited citizens in Wall Street than there was but one sentiment, 
that the insult to our national flag could only be washed out with 
rebel blood. On Monday, journals that were half rebel became 
loyal, and in Philadelphia the sturdy mechanics and artisans 
forced the rebel sympathizers to protect themselves by the flag of 
the Union. 

This loyal feeling spread like wildfire through the whole coun- 
try. The Spartan bands prognosticated by Keitt, Durgan, and 
the ex-Presidcnt, disappeared for the time, whilst armed aid was 
proff"ered from every quarter to President Lincoln. 

Ten States went out of the Union, some of them by fraud and 
against the express will of the people, and three were kept in the 
Union, although large bodies of their citizens joined the rebel 
armies. 

Mr. Russell went to South Carolina, and there, in familiar in- 
tercourse with their leading men, he remarks, "Again cropping 
out of the dead level of hate to the Yankee, grows its climax in 
the profession from nearly every one of the guests that he would 
prefer a return to British rule to any reunion with New England." 
" They afl'ect the agricultural faith and the belief of a landed gen- 
try. It is not only over the wine-glass — why call it cup ? — that 
they ask for a prince to reign over thera. I have heard the wish 
repeatedly expressed within the last two days, that we coulil spare 
them one of our young princes — but never in jest or in any frive- 
3 



Ions manner. ' Xot a man, no not one, will ever join the Union 
again! Thank God,' they say, 'we are freed from that tyranny 
at last.' 

"After dinner the conversation again turned on the resources 
and power of the South, and on the determination of the people 
never to go back into the Union. Then cropped out again the 
expression of regret for the rebellion of 1776, and the desire that 
if it came to the worst, England would receive back her erring 
children, or give them a prince under whom they could secure a 
monarchical form of government. There is no doubt of the ear- 
nestness loith ivhieh these things are said." 

These were the Southern Democratic friends whom Governor 
Seymour so lauded but a few weeks before, and whom he would 
not see coerced into discharging their duties as citizens of the 
United States : theoretical democrats, but practical monarchists ; 
and these are the men who would have you believe they were not 
responsible for the blood of your gallant comrades. 



ADDRESS No. II. 

Soldiers' and Sailors' State Central Committee, 

Philadelphia, August 25, 1868. 
The committee have endeavored in a previous address to show 
"Who are responsible for the War." It may now be well for our 
comrades to consider 

WHO PROLONGED THE WAR? 

The reverses of our armies before Eichmond, in the summer of 
1862, gave new life to the Peace Democracy, who, in November 
of that year, elected Mr. Seymour Governor of New York. The 
victory at Antietam did not abate their ardor, followed as it 
was by the proclamation of the President on the 22d of Septem- 
ber, announcing that on the 1st of January, 1863, he would pro- 
claim freedom to all the slaves in the rebel States. Of the view 
of Mr. Seymour and his friends in New York, Lord Lyons, in an 
official despatch to Earl Russell, dated Washington, November 17, 
1862, wrote as follows : 

" On my arrival at New York on the 8th inst., I found the Con- 
servative (Democratic) leaders exulting in the crowning success 
achieved by the party in that State. Several of the leaders of 
the Democratic party sought interviews with me, both before and 
after the arrival of the intelligence of General McCIella'n's dis- 
missal. The subject uppermost in their minds, while they were 
speaking to me, ivas naturalli/ THAT OF FOREIGN MEDIA- 



11 

TIOX BETWEEN THE NORTH AND THE SUUTII. Many 
of tliem seemed to tliiiik tliis inediation must come at last, but 
they appeared to be very much afraid of its coming too soon. It 
was evident tliat a premature proposal of foreign intervention 
would afford the Radical party a means of reviving the violent 
war spirit, and of thus defeating the peaceful plans of the Con- 
servatives. 

"At the bottom I thought I perceived a desire to put an end to 
the war even at the risk of losing the Southern States altogether ; 
but it was plain it was not thought prudent to avow this desire. 
Indeed, some hints of it, dropped before the elections, were so ill- 
received that a strong declaration in the contrary sense was deemed 
necessary by the Democratic leaders. 

•' They maintain that the object of the military operations should 
be to place the North in a position to demand an armistice with 
honor and effect. The armistice should (they hold) be followed 
by a convention, in which such changes of the Constitution should 
be proposed as would give the South ample security on the sub- 
ject of its slave property. 

" The more sagacious members of the party must however look 
upon the proposal of a convention merely as a last experiment to 
test the possibility of reunion. They are no doubt well aware 
that the more probable consequence of such an armistice would be 
the establishment of Southern independence. 

" It is with reference to such an armistice as they desire to 
attain that the leaders of the Conservative party regard the ques- 
tion of foreign mediation." 

If the Democratic leaders had dared to declare these views, and 
this trafficking with the representative of Great Britain, they would 
have been branded as traitors to the Union. Lord Lyons does 
justice to President Lincoln and the Republican party although 
using strong language: 

"The views of that party are clear and definite. They declare 
there is no hope of reconciliation with the Southern people — that 
the war must be pursued per fas et nefas, until the disloyal men 
of the South are ruined and subjugated, if not exterminnted ; 
that not an inch of the territory of the Republic must be given 
up; that foreign intervention in any shape must be rejected and 
resented." 

A few weeks after the Albany Democratic Convention of Janu- 
ary 31, 1861, Governor Seymour said to Judge Ruggles, " Have 
you read the Confederate constitution ? I have, and it is better 
than ours. Then why not obviate all diflBculty by simply adopting 
that constitution?" 

And, after the issuing of President Lincoln's first emancipation 
proclamation, Mr. Seymour publicly said, " that if the Union could 
only be maintained by abolishing slavery, then the Union ought 
to be given up." 

With these sentiments and these principles, ^Ir. Seymour en- .- 



tereJ upon the important duties ot (jiovernor of the great State of 
New York. 

Mr. Vallandigham, as a member of Congress, had opposed every 
measure proposed by loyal men to suppress the great rebellion, 
and President Lincoln, in his reply to the committee of the Ohio 
Convention, said of him, "At the same time, your nominee for 
Governor in whose behalf you appeal, is known to you and to the 
world to declare against the use of an army to suppress tlie rebellion. 
Your own attitude, therefore, encouraged desertion, resistance to 
the draft, and the like, because it teaches those inclined to desert 
and to escape the draft that it is your purpose to protect them, 
and to hope that you will become strong enough to do so." 

On the 4th of May, 1863, Mr. Vallandigham was arrested by 
General Burnside for "declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions 
with the object of weakening the power of the Government in its 
efforts to suppress an unlawful rebellion." He was tried bv a 
court martial and convicted and sentenced to be placed in close 
confinement in some fortress of the United States during the con- 
tinuance of the war, which was changed by the President to send- 
ing him beyond our military lines. The national judiciary de- 
clined to interfere, and his cause was taken up by a Democratic 
convention at Albany on the 16th of May, by the Ohio Democratic 
Convention on the 11 th of June, by a Democratic meeting in the 
State-house yard at Philadelphia, and by the Democratic°Guber- 
natorial Convention held at Harrisburg "in the month of June, at 
the moment the rebel army was marching into Pennsylvania. 

The President's replies to the Albany and Ohio committees were 
conclusive and are models of Executive correspondence, courteous, 
dignified, and keeping strictly to the point. How far Mr. Val- 
landigham's patriotism justified the exertions of his political 
friends, to return him from banishment and to elect him Governor 
of Ohio, an anecdote chronicled in "The Rebel War Clerk's 
Diary" may illustrate: "June 22, 1863.— To-day I saw the 
memorandum of Mr. Ould of the conversation held with Mr. Val- 
landigham for file in the archives. Ee {Mr. Vallandigham) says 
if we can only hold out this year, that the Peace party of the North 
would sweep the Lincoln dynasty out of existence. He seemed to 
have thought that our cause was sinking ?au\ feared we would sub- 
mit, which, of course, would be ruinous to his party. But he 
advises strongly against any invasion of Pennsylvania, for that 
would unite all parties at the North, and so strengthen Lincoln's 
hands that he would be able to crush all opposition, and trample 
upon the constitutional rights of the people." The President 
(Davis) indorsed on it his disagreement as to the invasion of Penn- 
sylvania. "But," added Mr. Davis, "Mr. Vallandigham is for 
restoring the Union, amicably, of course ; and if it cannot be so 
done, then possibly he is in favor of recognizing our independence." 

Fellow-soldiers and sailors, peruse this carefully, and say whether 
this gentleman was a patriot or a traitor, and whether the people 



13 



^L?fi nf ""' '^"°'' '''?' '''*"" '^'y ^'^'■■'"''^ ''"» fo'- Governor 

ZTo S ^ ' "^''"''r^. "'^°.'"" r"'^""'^'-'^^'^'/"'"«««'^. tl.e soldiers' 
vote being nearly solid against him. 

„.,!\l '''''■'• ''^^" ^1'"' P'-^'ticular as to tl.is gentleman because he 
tio, ll'^TcT' li '"■""•■^''' "^ "'^ Chicago Democratic Conven! 
p.e.ulent, Governor Seymour, and the real manager who made Mr 
Seymour the nominee of the New York Convention. Pendleton 
'niritofT'p •■"•%•?"' "'^"^es, whilst Vallandigham, the master- 
scr;L .;ls J*-- ^— -.V. dictates the nominee and will pkk- 

n^l^l" l\] '";;='f;°" Of Pennsylvania took place contrary to the 
New y°, I V''""n^'f •''"'' r^ '^' ^''''''^ New Jerley and 
tT\} ^'"g,^''^'led "PO" for militia by the General Govern- 
ment furnished the troops. Governor Seymour addressed a ]ar<.e 
meeting in the city of New York on the 4th of July, in a .peech 
evidently carefully prepared some days before, for he said • '^ 
mPofin " ^'='=''1''^'^ t'.'i« invitation to speak with others at this 
,r' '?°;/'\r""' P'^^'f*^ ^''^ ^'^^■"f''" °f Vicksburg. the open- 
canit.l n, .'"''?P'' ''"' P^u^'^''' '^'^P'"'-^ -^f ^^^^ ConfedeVate 
^K' ;,•: K .V-'''r'''°" ?^ 'K*' '■"^«"'""- ^y '-•"°'"'on consent 
nni.^n « n^K ,''"^ "P°" "'", ^"^ "•'^'^" '^"^ '•'^«"'^« "f the Cam- 
paign should be known to mark out that line of policy which they 
fel our country should pursue. But in the motnent of expected 
Tr, '^!^;";-"?f,™?-g''t cry for help from Pennsylvania tSsa -e 
Its de.poiled fields from the invading foe ; and almost within sight 

were hnfr, r?!'""'""' .'"'^^^P?,''^ ^he ships of your merchants 
weie burned to the water s edge. 

fopHnl"'' ^''"'''"r ?° P"'''"''f °^ '"' audience by appeals to their 
feelings, he used the memorable words which nine days afterwards 
were reool ected and put into practical operation by the infuriated 
ruffians, who for a short time governed New York, and made it 
the scene of murderous and unprovoked outrages, until quelled 
by the strong arm of the Federal Government: ^ ^ 

-Kemember this, that the bloody and treasonable and revolu- 
tionary .loctrine of public necessity can be proclaimed by a mob 

dr.rir K { \S°;7""''"^-'l °" *''" 11"' °f -^"'y '"c knew the 
diatt Uiich he had denounced as unconstitutional was to be com- 
menced and he should have anticipated the application of his words 
by the mob to it. On the 13th the riots commenced; the Gov- 
ernor was absent at Long Branch, and the Democratic journals 
used language treasonable in its tendency, and well calculated to 
mflame the worst passions of rude, unthinking, and unscrupulous 
men in opposing the laws of their country. 

rhe tone ami language of Governor Seymour, in his Fourth of 
July oration, like that of ex-President Pierce, was cold, vacillat- 
ing, and discoui-aging, prognosticating defeat and ruin in the 
prosecution of this " fearful, fruitless, fatal civil war." "I speak 
of this war as fruitless," ' said the ex-President; and after con- 



u 

dehining emancipation in the strongest language, and alluding to 
his advice in 1861 not to resort to arms, he adds: "All that has 
occurred since then has strengthened and confirmed my convic- 
tions in this regard. I repeat, then, my judgment impels me to 
rely upon MORAL FORCE ! ! ! and not upon any of the coercive 
instrumentalities of military power." 

When such language is used by a gentleman who had filled the 
Executive chair for four years as the official head of a great nation, 
is it surprising that ignorant, misguided, and wicked partisans 
should have construed his teachings and those of Governor Sey- 
mour, accompanied by the treasonable outpourings of influential 
journals, into direct counsel to stop a "fruitless" war by resort 
to riot and insurrection under the "revolutionary doctrine of pub- 
lic necessity" ? 

The riots came and drenched the streets of New York with 
blood, and were stimulated by Southern emissaries, whose de- 
clared object was to help Lee and the rebel arms, by withdrawing 
our veteran troops from the front to battle with Northern rebels in 
the rear. 

Governor Seymour addressed the rioters, whose hands were red 
with innocent blood, with the endearing terms, "My friends," 
" let me assure. you that I am your friend." " You have been 
my friends." [Cries of " Yes, that's so ; we are and will be 
again."] 

To these quiet, peaceable, orderly citizens, he said : " I wish 
you to take good care of all property as good citizens, and see 
that every person is safe. The safe-keeping of property rests 
with you; and I charge you to disturb neither. It is your duty 
to maintain the good order of the city, and I know you will do it." 
This was a draft riot, gotten up as' such, and made the City of 
New York responsible for property destroyed by the rioters valued 
at two millions of dollars. 

It had been proposed to prominent Republicans the day before 
that if they would promise that the draft should be arrested the 
riots should thereupon be stopped. 

Governor Seymour applied to President Lincoln to postpone 
the draft until after its constitutionality had been adjudged by 
the courts, asserting that "at least one-half of the people of the 
loyal States 'believed' that the conscription act, which they are 
called upon to obey, because it is on the statute-book, is in itself 
a violation of the supreme constitutional law." 

''I do not object," replied the President, "to abide by the de- 
cision of the Supreme Court, or the judges thereof, on the consti- 
tutionality of the draft law. In fact, I should be willing to facili- 
tate the obtaining of it; but I cannot consent to lose the time 
while it is being obtained. We are contending with an enemy, 
who, as I understand, drives every able-bodied man into his ranks, 
very much as a butcher drives bullocks into a slaughter-pen. No 
time is wasted, no argument is used. This produces an army 



15 

which will soon turn upon our noiovictoriouB soldiers already in 
r>'hc P ^f"*" r' ''"^ sustnincd by recruits as they should 
be. After further (hscussin- the utter impossibility of post- 
poning the draft, he said: "My purpose is to be, in my action, 
just and constitutional, and yet practical, in performing the im- 
portant duty with which I am ciiarged, ./ maintaining the unity 
and tliejrve principles of our common country." 

The victory of Gettysburg and the surrender of Vicksburg on 
the 4th of July, falsihed all the predictions of Pierce and Sey- 
mour, and demonstrated to these Peace Democrats that the 
American people were determined to subdue the Democratic rebels 
ui the ^outh by force of arms, and not by a timid attempt to use 
moral iorce only, which must have inevitably led, as those distin- 
guished gentlemen must have known, to the establishment of a 
Southern Slave Confederacy. 

The Democratic peace plan w(,uld have dissolved the Union, 
whilst the Republican plan save.l an.l preserved it entire, not 
losing one single inch of our territory, or waiving one single con- 
stitutional power to put down treason and rebellion against the 
lawful (jovernment of the United States. 

It seem: almost incredible that with such persistent and trai- 
torous opposition, the loyal soldiers and sailors should have suc- 
ceeded in Si ving the nation. 



ADDRESS No. Ill 

Soldiers' tinU Sailors' State Central Coimnittee. 

PuiLA-DELPHiA, Sejitember 1, Iftot 

Lieutenant-General Grant, our Commander-in-Chief, took com- 
mand of the Army of the Potomac in the spring o. 1864. On 
the .5th of May he commenced his march to Richmond, and oy a 
series of battles and successful movements, placerl his forces, on 
the 14th of June, across the James Kiver, and invested Peters- 
burg and Richmond, places which he neve • left until they were 
captured, with General Lee and his whole army. 

On the 16th of August, 1864, General Giant wrote to Mr. 
Washburne : 

" I state to all citizens who visit me, that all we want now to 
insure an early restoration of the Union, is a determined senti- 
ment of unity North. The rebels have notv in their ranks their 
last man. The little boys and old men are guarding prisoners, 
guarding railroad bridges, and forming a good part of their garri-' 
sons for entrenched positions. 

" A man lost by them cannot be replaced. They have robbed 
alike the cradle and the grave to get their present force." 

Mr. Vallandigham, after the advice given by him to Jefferson 
Davis not to invade Pennsylvania, ran the blockade and went to 



1(5 

Canada, and resided there until Juno, 18G4, wlien he returned to 
Ohio. On the 16tli of that month he addressed the Democratic 
Convention in Hamilton in a most violent harangue, and on the 
17th, at Dajton,.in answer to a serenade, announced his inten- 
tion to keep his mouth shut until after the Democratic National 
Convention at Chicago. That body met on the 29th of August. . 
Mr. Vallandigham was one of the Committee on Resolutions, and 
Governor Seymour was the permanent president of the Conven- 
tion. AmoHi, the resolutions offered in open convention was one 
from New York in favor of an armistice, and President Seymour, 
in his address on taking the chair, uttered no words of patriotic 
encouragement to our brave soldiers in the field or sailors on the 
sea, but said to them, " This administration cannot now save this 
Union if it would." " But if the Administration cannot save this 
Union, tve can." " In the coming election men must decide with 
which of the two parties into which our people are divided they 
will act." '' If they wish for peace they will act with those 
who sought to aveit the war and who now seek to restore good 
will and harmony among all sections of our country." This was 
Peace Democracy as pictured by its present candidate. Now, 
what was his plan ? We find it officially stated in the second reso- 
lution of the platform, as adopted by the Convention, in these 
memorable words, which stick like the shirt of Nessus to the unfor- 
tunate Democratic Peace Party : 

" Resolved, That this Convention does e.iplieitly declare, as the sense of the 
American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the ex- 
periment of war, durint; which, under the pretence of a military necessity, or war 
power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded 
in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the 
material prosperity of the country essentially impaired — justice, humanity, libeity, 
and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts he made for a cessation of 
hostilities, with a view to an ultimate conventionof the States, or other peaceable 
means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored 
on the basis of the Federal Union of the States." 

We have the history of this resolution from its author, Mr. A'al- 
landigham, who was really the hero of this Convention. In June, 
1863, he said to Mr. Ould, the rebel commissioner, "he thought 
the rebel cause was sinking, ?im\ feared they would submit, which 
would of course he ruinous to his imrty." Mr Vallandigham's 
intercourse with the rebel emissaries in Canada was kept up while 
in that province, and he was fully aware of the rapidly growing 
weakness of the rebel Confederacy, and that nothing but an im- 
mediate armistice which the Democratic leaders had broached to 
Lord Lyons in November, 1862, could save it from utter and en- 
tire ruin. 

In his own words we have his direct avowal of the fact of au- 
thorship : " Mr. Vallandigham wrote the second, the material 
resolution of the Chicago platform, and carried it through the 
sub-committee and the general committee in spite of the most des- 



perate and persistent opposition on the part of CassiJy and his 
friends — Mr. Cassidy himself in an adjoining room laborin<T to 
defeat it."' ° 

Mr. Campbell, of the rebel War Department, in his letter of 
the 13th September, 18G4, said: "Any peace on the terms of 
Union will have to be made on the terras of their present Union. 
No administration at the North can offer more, or could fulfil any 
agreement to do more ; but events seem to be hastening onward 
towards a termination of the war ;" and it is clear from tlie whole 
tone of his letter that he anticipated the worst results to the rebel 
Confederacy. 

No dispassionate looker-on, and certainly not Mr. Vallandig- 
ham, who knew the approaching death of the Confederacy, could 
have truly asserted that the war was a failure, an assertion which 
a few months proved to be false, and without the slightest founda- 
tion in fact. Believing this to be so, then the proposition of an 
armistice was simply designed traitorously to prevent the certain 
triumph of the arms of the Union. That a body of American 
citizens should ever have adopted such a disgraceful resolution, 
shows the enormous power exercised over them by Mr. Vallandio-. 
ham. In November, Mr. Lincoln was elected President, and Mr. 
Seymour was defeated as Governor of New York. 

On the 9th of the ne.xt April, a little more than seven months 
after this resolution, framed by Mr. Vallandigham and applauded 
by Mr. Seymour, was passed by this peace convention, General 
Lee surrendered his whole army, and the rebel Cabinet was dis- 
persed to the four winds of heaven. Jefferson Davis was in full 
flight, and the Southern Confederacy had collapsed, and on the 
14th the great and good Lincoln fell by the hands of rebel assas- 
sins, a fate which had been planned for him from the first by the 
wicked authors of the rebellion. 

The unfortunate differences of opinion between the President 
and Congress in relation to the fourteenth amendment to the Con- 
stitution and the reconstruction of the rebel States, led to the 
futile convention of August, 1866, in which the rebel leaders were 
permitted to be only sile7it participants. 

The elections of 1866 gave the Republicans more than two- 
thirds of both houses, and the legislation of Congress presents the 
unprecedented fact of every important measure necessary to the 
peace of the country and the reconstruction of the rebel States 
being passed by two-thirds over the veto of the President and 
against the votes of the Peace Democracy in Congress. 

General Grant during this period was universally looked to by 
men of all parties as the person whom the American people, 
grateful for his great services in suppressing the rebellion and 
preserving the Union, would desire to see placed in the Presi- 
dential chair. General Grant Avas not a politician, but a modest 
citizen, neither seeking any higher honors nor asking his fellow- 
citizens to confer them upon him. 



18 

The Peace Democracy sought him as their candidate, but failed, 
and, as his views were made known by his actions and n'ecessary 
oflBcial correspondence, he became the acknowledged candidate of 
the loyal soldiers and sailors, and of the Republican party. 

On the 19th and 20th of May last, he was unanimously nomi- 
nated hy botli Conventions at Chicago, as President, and Schuyler 
Colfax was nominated as Vice-President. 

Shall these patriots represent the loyal heart of the people, or 
shall Mr. Vallandigham and his favorites ? 



ADDRESS No. IV. 



Soldicis' and Sai/oi'.s' State Central Committee, 

Philadelphia, Sept. 14, 1868. 

THE NEW YORK CONVENTION. 

On the Fourth of July last the Democratic Xational Convention 
met at New York, composed of the leaders of the Peace Democ- 
racy and of the unrepentant Southern rebels. The Convention 
effected a temporary organization on the 4th, and on the Gth was 
permanently organized by the selection of Horatio Seymour, of 
New York, for president, and adjourned finally on Thursday the 
9th. The two-thirds rule was rigidly adhered to, until every 
prominent candidate was killed off; and on the last day's session, 
by what had been previously arranged by the managers of the 
Democracy, Mr. Vallandigham withdrew the name of Mr. Pen- 
dleton, and on the 21st ballot the Ohio delegation nominated and 
voted for Horatio Seymour, which honor that gentleman, as before, 
declined, saying: "Your candidate I cannot be." But Mr. Val- 
landigham, in a strain of fervid eloquence, addressing him, said : 

" In times of great public exigency, and especially in times of great public 
calamity, every personal consideration must be yielded to the public good. The 
safety of the people is the supreme law, and the safety of the American Republic 
demands the nomination of Horatio Seymour, of New York. Ohio cannot, Ohio 
will not, accept his declination, and her twenty-one votes s7iaW stand recorded 
in his name, and I now call upon the delegatigns from all the States represented 
on this floor, upon the delegations from all the States of this Union, from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, from the great lakes to the Gulf, disregarding those 
minor considerations, which justly, it may be properly, I know, tend to sway them 
in casting their ballots to make this nomination unanimous ; and, before God, I 
believe that in November the judgment of this Convention will be confirmed and 
ratified by the jieople of all the United States. Let the vote of Ohio stand 
recorded then — twenty-one votes for Horatio Seymour. 

The command of the leader of the Peace Democracy, the author 
of the armistice resolution at Chicago in 186-4, was implicitly 
obeyed, and Horatio Seymour was forthwith unanimously nomi- 
nated, which nomination he finally accepted. 



But this programme was not developed and executed until the 
teoldiers Convention, sitting in the same city, had been induced 
to adjourn sine die. 

.Q^J'"^':'''^ ^''■■'^"<='« P- ^^I'-^i'-' in hi., letter of the 30th of June 
1868, which may be called his bid for the Presidency, speakin- „f 
the reconstruction acts of Congress, boldlv proclaimed what wmild 
be /lis poltci/ as President : 

thl/i-T ''*„''"' ""?,«-"y '" restore the Government and the Constitution, and 
that IS for he President elect to declare these acts null and void, com ne the 
ernL„..""l1° "^ "^'"•P""""' «» ^^e South, disperse the carpet-bag Stat'e Gov- 

^:::':!^K:i::::z^' '^ ^^°-°.=""''-' '''- °-" "--•"-"'^- -- «-' 

"I wish to stand before the Convention on this issue, but it is one which em- 
braces everything else, that is of value, in its large and comprehensive results.- 

The Convention adopted the spirit of this letter, by introducinc 
into Its platform, at the request of Wade Hampton, these words- 
We regard the reconstruction acts (so called) of Con.'ress as 
usurpations, and unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void." 

Uade Hainpton, in his e.\-planation of his action in procurin<T 
this declaration, said, " I said I would take the resolutions if they 
would allow me to add but three words, which you will find em- 
bodied in the platform. I added, ' and we declare that the recon- 
struction acts are revolutionary, unconstitutional, and void.' When 
1 proposed that, every single member of the committee— and the 
warmest in it were the men of the North— came forward and said 
they would carry it out to the end." 

Governor Perry, a delegate to the Convention, said that " Wade 
Hampton ivas the Lion of the Convention;" and, he added, " Hamp- 
ton was courted by all parties North, South, East, and W^est, and 
when, as a member of the committee, he submitted that section 
which declares the reconstruction acts void and revolutionary the 
rest of the committee told him to make it as strong as he pleased 
they u'ould indorse it." -^ r ^ 

The conclusive proof of the Blair policy, as stated in the letter 
ot the <50th of .June, being adopted by the New York Convention 
and by tlie Democracy North and South, to its fullest extent, is 
to be found displayed at full length, in a most valuable paper, in 
! HM ^ '""'^"'"S G^«^''««, of Tuesday, the 11th of August, entitled 
'Ihe New Rebellion— The Record of the Democratic Party as 
made up by itself— Blair's Letter Dictating the Democ/atic 
Policy." AVe assume, therefore, that the settled, unchan<reable 
determination of the Democratic party, if they succeed at the 
coming election, is to have a revolution, in which President Sey- 
mour IS not only to declare the reconstruction acts unconstitutional, 
null and void (the sole power to do so, by the newly invented 
Democratic doctrine, being vested in him, a mere executive officer, 
and not in the Supreme Court or the representatives of the people)' 
but to employ the army of the United States in upsetting and 
abolishing the legal recognized State governments of the late rebel 



20 

States, and restoring such unrepentant rebels as HA3IPT0N 
and Perry, Toombs and Cobb, FORREST mid Pike, to the pos- 
session of all their former power. 

It is not surprising that the South Carolinians, Hampton and 
Perry, should support this doctrine, for we have seen that these 
gentlemen and their compeers wished for a prince of the blood 
royal of England to reign over them, as they were monarchists 
and desired the formation of a landed aristocracy. 

As it has been the constant practice from the beginning of the 
war, of the Peace Democracy not to aid the Government, but to 
consistently oppose every necessary measure to suppress the re- 
bellion according to the mode sketched out by Mr. Russell, who 
says in his diary: "A most notable way of impeding their efforts 
is to knock them down with the 'Constitution every time they rise 
to the surface and attempt to swim out." We. should be glad to 
ask in what portion of the Constitution this more than kingly 
power to overthrow a legal government is vested in the President 
elect? 

We do not believe that any loyal soldier or sailor, or any Amer- 
ican citizen who loves his country, can ever vote for a party or its 
candidates who avow such detestable, atrocious, and unprincipled 
doctrines. 

The next plank in the platform is repudiation, as openly avowed 
by the New York Convention, and so understood and bitterly 
denounced by the Journal of Commerce, the great Democratic 
financial organ, and this denunciation is responded to in every 
part of the civilized world. 

The rebellion could not have been suppressed without the great 
financial and banking .system instituted and perfected by the pres- 
ent Chief Justice of the United States, then at the head of the 
Treasury Department. It enabled the Government to borrow 
from all classes of citizens, including the honest farmer, the in- 
dustrious mechanic, artisan, and operative, the necessary funds to 
raise, equip, support, and pay the largest army in the world ; to 
build and man a navy fit to meet the combined navies of Europe, 
whilst it gave us a national currency of equal value in every part 
of the Union. It gave us credit abroad, and enabled us to borrow- 
large sums in Europe, and particularly in honest Germany, whose 
people placed implicit reliance on the well-known public faith of a 
Government, which, in the time of our great President, Andrew 
Jackson, had paid off our revolutionary debt, and that of the war 
of 1812. 

Of these bonds, four hundred millions are held abroad — largely 
in Germany — and twenty-one hundred millions are held in the 
United States, by persons in every walk of life. The saving funds 
which hold the savings of the poor have their principal investments 
in United States bonds. Trustees, minor children, widows, and 
single women-, are in the same condition. Let any man look 



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